My mid 60's 327 is driving me nuts with a hot restart issue. Have put in a new starter w/ heat shield, new battery and wrapped the exhaust thinking I have a heat soak problem because once it cools down, the issue goes away. Could it be that the nose of the starter is still seeing too much heat as it is only a few inches from the exhaust flange or am I pushing too much timing. Yesterday I ran it in place at idle until it was up too temp - 180 deg (less than 10 minutes) and it barely restarted. Sounded bound up. Suggestions welcomed.
If it sounds bound up, and you have not yet checked the timing, you have your answer. Often on an older engine, the rubber in the crank pulley gets bad and the timing markes are no longer acturate. Thats when you learn to time it with a vacuum gauge.
I had the same problem with my 11-1 327 untill I ran heavy ground wire from the battery to a bolt on the starter.
Hot starter & timing are suspect, some cases there is an improvement in hot starts if you run the battery ground wire to the starter mount bolt instead of the far end of the engine.
Get a hot start solenoid kit. uses an old style Ford solenoid. Works wonders. Standard equipment on racecars with headers.
Bingo GM harnesses are notorious for voltage drops on the start(purple) wire Install a Ford starter relay and use the purple wire to control it. You can kiss that problem goodby
My hot start problem was so bad that it would not even engage, not even a click when it was hot, I had to run a 10ga. wire from the starter up to the battery where I could get out and touch it off of the pos. terminal to start it when hot.............. I did the remote solenoid and pretty much solved the problem although it still cranks a bit slow when hot, but at least it starts now............................That may be one of the mentioned probs like a timing issue or not grounded properly or a heat shield on the starter might be the ticket, I need to work on that. Here's a decent write up on it. http://www.chevelles.com/techref/tecref4.html An added bonus is, I now had a hot terminal on the Solenoid to wire accessories such as the electric fan and stereo, whatever. that served to clean up the battery.
You're having an amperage issue. Your hot starter needs more amperage to operate. Change out your battery cables with welding cable -from a stick welder. Welding cable has finer filaments which will carry more amperage to turn the hot starter. The electrons travel along the surface of the copper wire, not through it. Smaller filaments gives more surface area for more electricity to travel on. I had the same issue with mine and this cured it. No more hot start problems for 7+ years. I also soldered my cable ends rather than using the clamp/crimp type. Your local welding supply should have the terminal ends too.
Makes sense to me, I understand that heat creates resitance within the wire, hindering it's ability to carry amperage, I may give that a try................... Thanx.
A quick check would be to back the timing off and try it. I had a 12.5/1 302 that I used a PTO cable to rotate the distributor for starting.
The block at 180* , no air movement past header- starter area. Ill bet the starter was at least 2x that temperature. Always a problem, hot start kit as mentioned helps fix the problem of hot start. Does nothing about cooking the starter and premature failure. Check your timing FIRST with a vacuum gauge or verify your timing mmarks are correct with a piston stop.
My daily driver 71 GMC resembles that comment to a T. Too many connections in the whole system that each add a bit of resistance to the whole process. Over time those connections each get a little bit of corrosion that adds up to being like several small kinks in a garden hose. And those butt connectors that we tend to use a lot are a big culprit a lot of the time.
If the battery ground cable is not bolted directly to the block or something that bolts to the block, move it so that it is connected directly to the block. I fought the same problem. Heat increases the resistance. I moved the ground cable from a welded stud on the frame to a tailshaft housing bolt and the problem was solved. I still have the solenoid that I bought thinking it was a heat soak problem. That was 30 years ago now. If you have long battery cables, they should be beefed up in size for the same reason.
I had a problem like that with a 73 olds,I think you have a 3 bolt starter,if the nose bearing are worn and loose that maybe your problem.
Heavier ground (to starter), heavier positive cable to a Ford type solenoid and then down to the starter, Check your timing as well (good advice about the balancer) Note: on the race cars we ran a separate on /off switch and starter switch. I would spin the motor over then hit the "on" switch....it had 15to1 comprression.
had a problem on my BBC try swapping out cables as mentioned I had 2 ga from trunk to bell housing for ground and a 2ga hot and it wouldn't start my 9.25:1 454 so I swapped to 0/1 ga cable and now it has no problems even at 210*......pretty common problem on GM w/ headers and a trunk mountr batt. heat adds so much resistance its not funny!
Thanks guys. Do not think the crank is an issue as the motor is a fresh rebuild. Timing is an easy quick check. No vacuum gauge but I'll simply back off a bit and see what happens. Wire is of welding machine size - battery through a kill sw to starter about 6 ft. total but will recheck (again) all connections, etc anyway. Knew about Ford conversion but was trying to avoid as my old fingers don't cooperate. Maybe I'll farm out and be done with it. Interesting about headers as previous motor had mid 60's Vette and problem appeared after new motor w/ headers was installed. Comp is only 9.7-1 running camel hump heads and an 18-18 solid cam, all stuck in a 32 - 5 window.
If it turns over slow,and not fast enought to start. I would check the bushing at the end of shaft gear end. If they are loose you will loose starting power.
I had the exact same problem. Mine turned out to be caused by a lousy frame-to-block ground. The PO put the ground strap over paint, instead of scraping it down to bare metal. Scraped off the paint and the problem disappeared.